Thank you to all AASLH bloggers for a great year of content, advice, and thought from the field. As we close out the year, let’s revisit the Top 5 Blog Posts:
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#5) The Relevance of History: A High-Schooler’s Perspective
Recently a high school student, Patrick Calvert, asked to meet with a colleague and me to find out how to move forward with a career in history and museums. Patrick came armed with the typical questions about what courses to study, typical day at work, and general salary info. Right out of the gates he showed he was very interested in a future of protecting, investigating, and promoting history. Naturally, among the many recommendations we made, I suggested he put in some volunteer time and write. He jumped at the idea of writing a blog post so I asked him to expand on why, in this day of immediate change and fast-paced technological development, why would he want to pursue a career in history. Read more…
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#4) 5 Names for Museum Educators
While looking through the posts right here on AASLH, I ran across Do You Docent? by Bob Beatty, where he discusses the meaning of the term “docent” in the museum profession. This post caught my eye because there has always been a debate in my office about what we should call ourselves. While these debates never get violent, they do stir up some very strong feelings. Just a little bit of background on the people in my office: we are the education department for our history museum, there are six of us, we are all full time, professional employees, and every one of us has at least a bachelor’s degree in fields like history, public history, and education. Read more …
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#3) Are We Sell-Outs? House Museums, Alcohol and Educational Mission
Last month, I wrote a post about a program I work on called History Happy Hour, specifically describing the audience it attracts. History Happy Hour is a monthly public program that resembles a fairly traditional lecture series, but also includes two drinks with the price of admission, and unstructured time before and after the lecture to explore a house museum without the barriers of velvet ropes between guests and artifacts. Read more…
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#2) You Know You Work in a Small Museum When…
For Throwback Thursday, here’s a post from Bob Beatty, AASLH VP of Programs. It was originally published during the AASLH 2009 Annual Meeting. Today was a great first “official” day of the conference. I spent several hours today with folks from the small museum community including the Small Museum Luncheon where we asked attendees to respond to the statement, You know you work in a small museum if…Below are some of the responses. Read more…
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#1) Lunch with colleagues (It’s more than eating)
Mary is a long time museum professional who works for a state agency. Lindsey has been an historical society director for the past five years. Please “listen in” on our conversation! Mary In the 19th century, lunchtime was an important break from the factory floor’s monotony. Remember how, in school, cliques formed around special tables in the lunchroom? And how fights sometimes settled disagreements? And we all know about the dangers of a three- martini lunch, even if we don’t watch Mad Men! Read more…
